Tennessee Williams just couldn’t leave Blanche alone! In his 1968 rendering In The Bar of a Tokyo Hotel Miriam (Susan Priver), the unhappy wife of an alcoholic painter, dawdles her life away in the bar as her husband (played by Rene Rivera) destroys their hotel suite by roiling on a canvas he put on the floor in search of his latest masterpiece. Some might find that laughable, but I lived through the Sixties, and I knew a painter just like this. So, too, Williams takes the character and pours all his own angst into it. But his painter-character is almost a side issue in favor of shining the spotlight on Miriam. In her tormented persona, we must examine the conflicting forces — fame, privilege, emotional starvation and resentment — that creates such a beautiful but fatal butterfly.
As you can tell from the forgoing, there is a lot to unpack in this very short, one-act play. Williams’ dramaturgy is impeccable. And as an artifact of Williams’ oeuvre, it is fascinating. By placing Mirium center stage, as it were, we are forced to examine every motivation; every move she makes to extricate herself from the dilemma in which Williams places her. It is as through Blanche has escaped the South, only to find herself in a place so foreign she can no longer rely on the same excuses that propelled her in the past.
Under director Jack Heller’s guidance, Priver as Mirium and the hotel bar-keep (Remington Hoffman) keep the tension going, even as we await Mark’s appearance. Williams provides an outside voice of reason, (Paul Coates as a New York Gallery owner), to try to bring sanity into the mix, only to have the smoking gun, cleverly planted at the beginning, bring hope to a close. What happens to Mirium? Williams leaves us to despair her fate.
We can thank “Dance On Productions” for resurrecting this little-performed piece. It is telling that the players are gifted professionals given the opportunity to flex their muscles on such meaty material. Small caveats, though, make me wish there had been a bit more fidelity by set designer Joel Daavid and costumer Shon LeBlanc to the time-period. Having traveled to Japan during the late sixties, it is jarring for me to see the main character dressed as a street-walker from a later era. Miriam, a New Yorker, would more rationally have worn Upper West Side chic. Additionally, Tokyo’s hotels of the time ranged from ostentatious to Japanese folk-trendy. It would have been nice to get more of a sense of the kind of place that would accommodate a famous artist as he trashed his suite.
That said, it is well worth every moment to savor Williams’ iteration of the sort of voracious, troubled women who surrounded him during his life. You have to live it to write it!
The West Coast Premiere of a Tennessee Williams play, In the Bar at a Tokyo Hotel, continues at the Hudson Theatre Backstage, 6539 Santa Monica Blvd, Los Angeles, CA 90038 (corner of Santa Monica & Hudson), Thursday, Friday and Saturday at 8 p.m. and Sunday at 3 p.m., through May 18th. For tickets ($40), go to: www.onstage411.com/In the Bar of A Tokyo Hotel.
